It's better to finish at the peak or soon after it, than to wait until the audience notices a decline.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
If you go on stage with the wrong attitude, or something in your performance is off, you can lose an audience in the first minute. That first minute is crucial.
It depends on various things like if the promoters want to have a break so they can sell more T-shirts and booze, then they ask if we can do an interval. I personally prefer not to do that. Once you get onstage, I like to stay there.
When the audience leaves, I'd like them to feel positive when they go.
I don't believe you should stay onstage until people are begging you to get off. I like the idea of leaving them wanting a bit more.
I think it's more interesting to throw people into a story and let them catch up instead of explaining and feeling like you have to slow down for them. I think audiences, for the most part, they don't want to be ahead of you.
The principle element in a performance is risk, and if you're losing interest then by scaring yourself to death the audience will feel it and boy it'll wake them up.
A show needs time to find an audience, and they're very quick to pull them off the air now.
My audience is going to die before I do.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about what the audience would want. That's my job, is to anticipate ahead of the audience.
At least I have precluded the possibility of peaking too early.